Issue 55 of ‘Socialist Resistance’ comes out next week, with a fresh new design, just in time for the Marxism festival in London. The headline sums up the mood across the left: ‘Election disaster! Now the left MUST unite‘.

The editorials in the magazine build on Socialist Resistance’s recent statement on the European elections, which argues that the BNP’s advance must be a wake-up call for the left. Articles in the magazine discuss New Labour’s collapse and spotlight examples of its reactionary policies, for the environment and policing.

Our article Mass movements: the fight for socialist politics is the central article in our survey on Britain, placing the battle for ideas alongside the struggle for united action.

Coverage from socialists abroad continues to be a strong element in the magazine, with Australian coverage of recent forest fires and an analysis from South Africa of the recent general elections. From the sub-continent, Pakistan socialists explain their dual fight against the Taliban and state repression while a Sri Lankan socialist looks at her country’s future after the bloodbath against the Tamils. International coverage is completed with analysis of recent events in Somalia and of the democracy battles after the Iranian election.

The final articles discuss the memory of two long-time Fourth Internationalists: the late Ernest Mandel, whose biography has been published in English, and Peter Gowan who passed away this month.

Readers of our last issue will know that we were able to reduce the price to two pounds by moving the interior of the magazine from full-colour to spot colour and using a lighter paper. With this issue we have adopted a more readable font, Adobe Garamond, for both the magazine and website. We also been able to increase the magazine to 40 pages.

Please help us keep it going, and keep down its costs, by taking out a subscription. The rates for 5 issues are: £10 Britain, £15 Rest of Europe, £20 International, £30 institutions. Please make your cheque out to Socialist Resistance and send it to: Socialist Resistance, PO Box 62732, London SW2 9GQ. If you prefer, use Paypal.com to send your payment to resistance@sent.com